


High Wires

by toli-a (togina)



Category: Justified
Genre: 1989, Episode: s01e01 Pilot, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 19:44:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20179699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/togina/pseuds/toli-a
Summary: Raylan always called.





	High Wires

**Author's Note:**

> msindrad (FortuneSurfer) prompted: "I have another Justified prompt on my mind: a scenario in which Raylan canonically left Harlan, yet he and Boyd would exchange letters? I have the feeling that a correspondence like this would mean the world to both of them, especially considering all the turmoil they had to deal with over the years." But I'm absolutely terrible at writing letters, so this is what we get.

Raylan runs. The mine collapses and Raylan runs and at some point his hand slips out of Boyd’s and Raylan keeps on running, nineteen years of running pent up in one boy and once he starts he can’t stop, runs toward daylight and runs toward his truck and runs right past the county line that’s formed the seam on his shroud since he was born. Raylan doesn’t tell anyone that’s he’s leaving, because he’s already gone, and he doesn’t tell them where he’s going, because he could be going anywhere, a curveball spiraling over the bleachers and out of the park.

He stops for gas in Johnson City. He pays the cashier inside, finds himself turning right out the door instead of walking back across the lot to his car. There’s a pay phone, outside the station. Raylan pulls the quarter from his pocket, flips it in the air and watches it spin. The phone rings once and then there’s a click and someone’s voice on the line, too fast for them to have been anywhere but waiting by the phone.

“Hello?” Raylan pulls the receiver away from his ear, stares at the pinpoint holes. “Hello?” There’s a pause, the sound of static and the click of the line and the whisper of someone’s breath in Raylan’s ear. “Raylan?” they finally query, and Raylan grips the phone cord and watches his knuckles whiten under a layer of coal.

“Yeah,” he croaks, all the effluent of a dying coal mine trapped in his throat. “I – yeah.”

“Raylan Givens,” the voice cries, too far away for Raylan to see whether it’s joy or rage threaded through the syllables of his name. “Boy, where the hell are you? Your mama’s been here and back again, worried out of her damn mind. You couldn’t take the time to call her and mention that you hadn’t died?”

Raylan shrugs, drags the nail of his thumb down the ridges of the metal phone cord. “I ain’t dead,” he says shortly, tucks the phone between his ear and his shoulder and inspects the coal dust settled on his hands, fainter where someone else’s hand had wrapped around his own.

“But you’re gone,” the voice declares, and Raylan looks around the gas station, fingers the gas receipt in his pocket, looks over at his truck. “Raylan -”

“I’ve gotta go,” Raylan interrupts, because he’s been standing still too long.

The voice sighs, and there’s the crackle of static as they breathe into the phone. “All right,” they say, and Raylan imagines they sound tired. Raylan imagines their voice is hoarse from screaming his name in a collapsing mine. “All right. Just …” Raylan holds onto the phone, rocks up onto his toes and back onto his heels. He gets ready to run. “Raylan. Just, don’t forget to call.”

“I won’t,” Raylan says.

He never does.

(Does he know Boyd Crowder? Art wonders, and Raylan doesn’t smile, doesn’t reach into his pocket to pull up the call log on his phone. He hasn’t called since he shot Bucks in Miami, and he’s looking forward to seeing Boyd Crowder’s face when Raylan Givens pulls up to his church and strides in.)


End file.
